Variant: The world is but a canvas to the imagination.
Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Wednesday
“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)
“Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.”
Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver. Imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children.
Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.
“The world is not our imagination but our nightmare, full of inconceivable surprises.”
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
“A thousand forms and passions glow
Upon the world-wide canvas.”
The Ancient And Modern Muses
Context: A thousand forms and passions glow
Upon the world-wide canvas. So
With larger scope our art we ply;
And if the crown be harder won,
Diviner rays around it run,
With strains of fuller harmony.
"The American Action Painters" (1952) in Art News 51/8, Dec. 1952, p. 22; then published in Tradition of the New, 1959.
As quoted in The Farmer's Wife, Vol. 36 (1933), p. 72
“[PlayStation 2] is a new canvas for humanity that takes us back to our nature.”
Quoted in "The Amazing PlayStation 2", Newsweek, 2006-02-26
Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008), Church of Scotland (May 25, 2009)
Source: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
